


The Noose

by forgetmenotjimmy



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Dark Imagery, Depression, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-30
Updated: 2013-05-30
Packaged: 2017-12-13 11:03:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/823572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgetmenotjimmy/pseuds/forgetmenotjimmy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain America stands for everything that is good: truth, honour and justice. He is unrelenting and glorious, stoic and strong. Steve Rogers is suffocating under that weight. Sometimes when he looks in the mirror, he thinks, so glad to see you well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Noose

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: depression and dark imagery

_So glad to see you well_

His skin is completely smooth and clear. No signs of blemishes, scars or any interruption of carved, tanned marble, his body is strong and whole. The strange thing is though, that he can still feel them: the thin slices of shrapnel sting across his face, the punches of bullets embedding in his torso and arms, the burns throb and the fractured bones screech at every motion. He remembers them all, he could trace around the bruises, trail his fingers across the cuts; he could form a self-portrait of all the injuries he’s ever sustained in his head and paint it in black, blue and red. On the darkest nights when lost in the depths of his unconsciousness he relives every injury, every hit, every drop of blood, the agony ricocheting through his body. Crippling blows glance off the pseudo-God body, but the inner eye soaks them in, catching and keeping each one. Flawless. To everyone else maybe, but not to him.

Stiffly, he reaches out and pulls on the clothes he’d laid out for the day, slowly but surely covering it all up.

_  
Overcome and completely silent now_

Immediately after the procedure the re-born soldier had been clumsy and ungainly, even more than he’d been with his thin, bird-like limbs before. But his natural ability to adapt and roll with life’s punches was enhanced too and rapidly he’d become fully accustomed to his new body and the weapons which accompanied it: stealth, speed, strength. Not to mention the heightened senses; able to see farther and clearer, distinguish people from their natural smell, hear the quietest of footsteps. He may live with superspies and ninja-trained assassins, but none of them could creep up on him, not even in his sleep. Sometimes just after the heat of battle when the pounding of blood in his ears abates, he swears he can deduce someone’s heartbeat from a few feet away, a faint throbbing on the edge of his consciousness, though he always tells himself that it’s his own, his own heart still beating strong. He can hear them, he always hears them. But despite all that, in the middle of the night, he couldn’t hear anything, not even his own breaths, own heartbeat. It was like a…a kind of death.

_  
With heavens help you cast your demons out_

_Stay a good man_. No matter what else, what else, whatever else, stay…stay-

He tries. He always tries. His natural tenacity and grit thankfully carried over into the new version, making him even more resilient now his flesh could keep up with his spirit. That was what the good Doctor had been counting on, that the serum would enhance his natural qualities. _Stay a good man._ He sees lies and deception all over the new chain of command, SHIELD fights to protect the country but he is well aware that sometimes things aren’t always as they seem, sacrifices must be made. It seems that during his years frozen as a symbol of hope and freedom, those qualities had been weakening everywhere else, desperation and cunning rising in their wake. So he tries to hold on to his values, trying to keep calm and controlled in the electric storm of the future. The now.

He doesn’t know where to turn, who he can trust, what can help him…

Finding a church near where he’d grown up, he prays, says a heavily edited confession and doesn’t feel better.

_  
And not to pull your halo_

You would think him a true Catholic saint by the way he’s talked about sometimes, especially in the media that seems to have engulfed public life. Captain America: the Pinnacle of Good Old-Fashioned American Values. Except that seemed to mean something different now, that seemed too vast for just one man to uphold. And it was. Well Steve Rogers was brought up to the teachings of the Catholic church, first by his Irish mother, then by the strict but caring nuns at the orphanage and he knew well how much had to be achieved to become a recognised saint. He certainly didn’t qualify, not with all of this doubt festering in his weary heart. But the voices piling praise and expectations on him came from everywhere, the media, the public, even SHIELD and his own team looked to him for wholesome and good ideals, qualities.

With his team, though they teased him with allusions to his supposed perfection, there was always respect layered underneath and from most of them an unspoken understanding that he was more than just an immaterial concept. After all, they did follow him into battle, no objections to his appointment as leader; even Thor, a commander in his own right, concedes to Steve’s orders. Well, perhaps maybe not with Tony, even after all these months of living and fighting together, he still could never quite figure out where the truth lay in all those cleverly put together words. But despite their camaraderie, their jokes and laughter, he couldn’t confess to any of them his misgivings, his doubts, his fears. He was their leader, he watched their backs and made sure they were provided for and that was his job done. Done.

_  
Pull your halo around your neck_

He can feel the slight chill of the room, the cold tiles against his bare feet, but ignoring all that he looks down at his open sketchbook he’d rested on the wash basin, staring down at the drawing he’d been doing the night before, charcoal lines and smudges on the thick page the size of his hand. It’s a sketch of himself looking in the mirror; his big, muscular back rigid, thick arms taught as strong fingers clutched the edges of the sink and in the reflection, a body in the same pose but shorter and so much thinner. His body pre-serum stares back at the new one, his old self: hands and feet too big for his stick-like limbs, eyes big and wide, soft lips parted, little Steve Rogers staring with fear and horror at what he sees. The face of the new body can’t be seen, just the back of its head visible, not a hair out of place in the military style, the neck stiff. Around the reflection’s neck, there is a smudged line, faint against the sharp dark lines of the thin limbs and skeletal torso, but there, noticeably there.  

The artist tries to look away from the sketch but the terror and disgust in that thin face won’t let him. He still can’t remember when he’d drawn it, just that he had been half-caught in a nightmare at the time.

_Recall the deeds as if they're all_ _  
Someone else's atrocious stories_

The memories haunt him. There is no escaping them. They can be blurred and covered during the day, muffled under the good-natured bickering, barked orders and their attempts to keep the city from crumbling, but then in the silence, in the dark, they come screaming back. Harsh white lights blaze in his eyes, garbled shouts precede the unrelenting rat-a-tat-tat, the twisting of bodies against red heat, the sobbing of near-dead men against his furious heart beat…blue flashes engulf everything, wiping the scenery until there is only a blue white, a white blue case surrounding him, pushing in and down, compressing his chest, squeezing his lungs, pressing against his skin, closing round his neck.

The scenes from the few war films he’s seen since waking here, never through conscious choice, could not compare and it doesn’t work to pretend the screams in his head are from well-paid, fake-bloodied actors. When the Captain needs to make a public appearance or announcement, SHIELD provides him with little cards with cold, printed platitudes and when there is need-to-know information the team is in need of knowing, it is presented on crisp, sharp paper that make the facts seem far off. Once he’d tried to type up and print out one of the messier missions from way back when. It took him a few hours to write roughly 200 words and holding that sheet of paper proved it a failure, even after he’d relaxed his fist and tried to smooth out the creases. When he sketches now, the paper far whiter than he remembers, he smudges charcoal or dark pencils over the page first, unable to draw directly onto such purity.

There is no pretending, no way he can find a way to dim the horror echoing through his very being.

  
_How you're planning to go about making your amends_   
_To the dead_

There are nights in which he is alone in the ice. Others he is joined by pale faces and empty eyes. He tries not to linger there during the day, tries to outrun the faded images that lurk in corners and the faint voices that hide in everyday noises: he trains and works out, cooks and tries new cuisines, reads and catches up with history, watches TV and tries to negotiate squabbles between the members of his new team. He also tries to talk as much to his team as he can, to get to know them better; they aren’t the most social of people – even Stark works by himself more than he lets on – but most days the Captain can have enough interaction to keep away the hauntings.

Oh God those faces. Bloodied grins and hollow eyes stare at him, ruined versions of friends he used to know, used to be able to touch. They try to touch him now, wrinkled and decaying hands claw at him, scratching infected lines into his pale face, inhumanly strong arms bruising him where they grab and pull and rage. The horrible gurgling noise they make as they open rusty jaws, forces his body to shiver and shake in revulsion as they surround him, press in, crowd him, make the air thick with the smell of death. Even when he woke, the touches never left his skin, lingering, their smell clinging to him, reminding him.                

Sometimes it was like the world was muffled, like he’d had cork stuffed in his ears and all voices were garbled murmurs, everything muted and confused. Other days, there was a filter over his eyes, making the world dim and alien. Sometimes he’d wake, stare at the ceiling in the dark of early morning, listen absent-mindedly to JARVIS’ reminders or suggestions as he tried to reconcile everything that had come before and everything he’d have to face that day.  

_  
Now you stand reborn before us all_

Staring at his appearance, his face that seems to be bigger and more filled out even though he was sure that was just his imagination. He found it so strange that he could live out an entire day without noticing and then catch a glance of himself in the mirror and remember, remember how he’d changed, how he’d _been_ changed. He could get used to the height and the reach, the strength and speed but whilst his new appearance opened doors for him, it attracted a certain type of attention he never knew that he didn’t want. Perhaps he’d spent too long being ignored to feel comfortable being eyed up like a piece of meat; men and women alike let their gazes linger, some just lingering, others predatory. He felt like a rabbit under a hawk’s shadow. His body was so young and strong, why did he feel so old? He tried to push the thought away, the thought that all his old friends were skeletons now, like over the years he’d stolen all of their youth, vitality, life.

_So glad to see you well_

Unable to destroy the sketch despite how it disturbed him, he’d slipped it into his night sketchbook. The one he only used when no one was around, usually in his room when unable to sleep or having just woken up from a nightmare his muse would grab for charcoals. Although he hadn’t asked JARVIS not mention the existence of that particular sketchbook, Steve had a feeling that the AI had kept that to himself; he’d once informed the Captain that although the Tower as well as the team’s electrical equipment was always monitored for security reasons, their privacy was safe with him. Even though Steve wasn’t even completely alone, he felt at ease enough to let his mask fall and anyway, there were days when another voice – though robotic – was comforting.

No one else could ever know their leader’s weakness, it was unacceptable. They may not be at War, at least not how he’d experienced it before, but that wasn’t an excuse for slacking. He must be ready and alert at all times, a strong presence with all the answers, he must protect the vulnerable, lead those who could fight and inspire courage in all. Looking into the reflection in the daytime, he still saw unnatural shadows darkening under his eyes. He knew he needed to work harder to conceal his failings, the weakest parts of him, he knew that. He needed to sleep, no matter how cruel his mind could be to him, he needed to be at his best. He needed to stop being so pathetic.  
  
 _With your halo slipping down_

Nauseous as the skin on his neck felt a phantom but firm pressure, he breathed in deep repeating in his head that his collar wasn’t too tight, it wasn’t cutting across his windpipe like a blunt knife. That memory had been in the world before, it didn’t belong here. He cleared his throat and tugged at the plaid shirt a little. It was a boring Thursday, no planned missions, team exercises or plans with friends. Trying to keep his face neutral, even with himself, might as well practise, he lingered his thoughts involuntarily on his team. Were they replacements for those mischievous and brave faces his eyes couldn’t let go of? Certainly not. But friends… maybe? Steve wasn’t sure either way as though they now clicked in the field, even Stark, and weren’t openly hostile towards him, except for Stark, none of them seemed too…interested in him. They respected and listened to the Captain but when it came to Steve, well… They didn’t refuse to talk to him, he managed to get a rough quota each week of a few, short conversations with them all, nothing ground-breaking though perhaps if he understood Banner and Stark they would be. Okay, so it wasn’t fair to describe Stark as hostile, bitterly sharp sometimes maybe but not… It wasn’t his fault that Steve felt so lost, like he was wading through heavy fog that grew heavier and heavier on his limbs as he heard echoing voices from far away. It wasn’t any of their faults that there wasn’t really much of Steve left to be interested in.

So alone and so alien; a stranger in its own skin.

_  
To choke you now_

In the silence, in the dark, there are no tears or muffled sobs.

Just a slow, cold, choke.


End file.
